Iran Launches Waves Of Missiles At Israel In Response To Airstrikes

TEL AVIV/DUBAI/WASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) – Iran and Israel traded missiles and airstrikes on Saturday, the day after Israel launched a sweeping air offensive against its old enemy, killing commanders and scientists and bombing nuclear sites in a stated bid to stop it building an atomic weapon.

In Tehran, Iranian state TV reported that around 60 people, including 20 children, had been killed in an attack on a housing complex.

In Israel, air raid sirens sent residents into shelters as waves of missiles streaked across the sky and interceptors rose to meet them, killing at least three people. An Israeli official said Iran had fired around 200 ballistic missiles in four waves.

U.S. President Donald Trump has lauded Israel’s strikes and warned of much worse to come unless Iran quickly accepts the sharp downgrading of its nuclear programme that the U.S. has demanded in talks that had been due to resume on Sunday.

But with Israel saying its operation could last weeks, and urging Iran’s people to rise up against their Islamic clerical rulers, fears have grown of a regional conflagration dragging in outside powers, with global economic and financial repercussions.

The United States, Israel’s main ally, helped shoot down Iranian missiles, two U.S. officials said.

Iranian fire still struck residential districts in Israel, however, and Defence Minister Israel Katz said Iran’s leadership had crossed a red line.

“If (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn,” he said in a statement.

Iran had vowed to avenge Friday’s Israeli onslaught, which gutted Iran’s nuclear and military leadership and damaged atomic plants and military bases, killing 78 people including civilians according to Iran’s U.N. envoy.

Tehran warned Israel’s allies that their regional military bases would come under fire too if they help shoot down Iranian missiles, Iranian state television reported.

Iran’s own ally, the Yemeni Houthi group, fired missiles at Israel on Friday night but at least one appeared to go astray, injuring five Palestinians including three children in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

However, 20 months of war in Gaza and a conflict in Lebanon last year have decimated Tehran’s strongest allies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, reducing its ability to project power across the region along with its options for retaliation.

Gulf Arab states that have long…